You can still read The Blogpreneur 1

So you are still convinced that you want to try your hand at the business of blogging for money? Good for you, determination and drive are the most important aspects of any business venture. You’ll need plenty of both to be a successful blogpreneur.

Now, remember what was said In Part 1. This IS a business, and you should treat it as such. Like any other business the better prepared you are before getting into it, the sooner you will see the results. Although learning on the job is a popular way to go with blogging, there are very few bloggers who can’t write a post called “what I wish I knew before I started blogging.”
This list is a combination of things I wish I had known and common problems I’ve observed.

1. Patience
It takes time, and you won’t see much return early on. It is however possible to succeed with hard work and staying power. If you don’t love the idea of working on this for months - maybe even years - before you start showing any real income. Do yourself a favor and spend the time doing other things. You’ll be less frustrated and just by walking down the street you have a better chance of picking up cents than a bad blog will.

2. Set Yourself Up For Success From The Beginning
Don’t try the “let’s see what happens” approach, remember this is a business, and businesses do better with good planning and preparation. Research everything, make a plan and research it again.

Frustration and disillusion are the two major killers of the blogpreneur. Be your own worst critic before you start and you’ll do a lot better once you get going. By doing your legwork early, you’ll produce a better blog and see less setbacks. Trust me, you’ll see enough of them as it is.

3. Get Self Hosted
Get your domain name, it’s not expensive, get your design worked out, do all the legwork before you get half way and have to make changes, redirecting your blog etc. It’s worth the $6 a month to get self hosted right away. If only to avoid future problems.

Although you can be successful on hosted blogs like Blogger etc., most professional bloggers choose the freedom of self hosting. You have much better control over anything from your layout to your content. I also think that you also have better control over your statistics than most free services offer. And good stats are key to understanding what your customers are doing.

4. Read Your Competition
The more you read, the better you will get at understanding why the big ones are constantly hitting it big. It’s not just their size, it’s the fact that they have tapped into what people want to read. Read their posts and read the comments that are left there. The number of comments are a decent indicator of the overall popularity of a post. So pay close attention to the posts with many comments.
Make sure that you don’t ignore the lessons they are teaching with every post they put out there. The giants are where they are because they know this game better than you do.

Never steal posts; it’s just bad business to get a bad name in the blogging world. It will make success a whole lot harder in the long run. That being said, when you read others posts that you like or maybe disagree with. Posting your own thoughts and linking back to their post is perfectly acceptable. Again, treat this like a real business. Approach it with integrity; it might not be as easy as cheating and stealing. But it’s the only way to last long enough to actually make a profit.

The more you read, the easier you will have to find topics you want to write about as well. Think of it this way. Whenever you see a photo from a famous author’s home, you will see books, lots and lots of books. And I bet you that the RSS readers of most A-list bloggers looks like the library of congress.

5. Make Blogging Friends
There are lots of blogging networks out there. BlogCatalog is a good example. Start by joining one or more of these communities, participate in the discussions. You will be able to pick up a ton of great advice before you have to learn through your own mistakes.

Treating blogging as a business means that you need to network. Set time aside everyday to participate in some kind of forum or other area. You will save time, frustration and money listening to the ones that have been doing this for a while.

6. Write For Your Readers, Not For The Money
Sure, you want to make money, but the second you forget that you have to get and keep readers, you will lose them and your potential earnings with them. Great writing on interesting topics brings people. And people are what is going to bring you money.

You will see the phrase “content is king” enough times to want to choke the person that coined it with their underwear. It’s a cliché, but like every cliché it became one because it’s true. If your writing isn’t great, chances are that you won’t get very far.

7. Forget About The 3 Million Dollar First Month
Forget about the 20 dollar first month too.
You probably won’t make money in the beginning, at least not to any great extent. The reason why so many quit early on is because they are writing their hearts out and getting close to nothing in return. Few readers, no money, little recognition are the trademarks of a new blog. Add to that the mistake of thinking that in 9 articles will be able to retire, and the disillusion is complete. (The reason for all those abandoned blogs I mentioned)

Blogging is hard and harsh. Unless you are prepared to stick with it, you have absolutely no chance of getting anywhere. Check out any of the great sites. And you will see that they have hundreds of articles. A basic reason they are here now is that they made it past the initial hump when things weren’t going so well.

8. Don’t Promote Something You Don’t Have
When you are new, write and write some more, tweak your layout, get it looking right. Each time someone visits a brand new, mostly empty blog, you may be losing a potential future reader because they don’t find anything worth coming back for. Get a good 10 - 15 posts online before you even consider hardcore promotion.

Use this early time to have friends look it over, tell you what they think, give you feedback on your writing and everything else. This is your product development. The sooner you get it right, the better off you’ll be.

9. Promote Others Before You Promote Yourself
While you are still new, use the time wisely to build good relationship and networks on the social media sites. Reddit , Technorati , Stumble , Digg , etc. Building a strong network of people who can help you drive traffic later will get you much better results than starting too soon. And doing it yourself is not very effective.

By actively participating in these networks without excessive self promoting, you will build a strong base for when you need the leverage.

10. Learn Basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
There are a ton of books, blogs and sites out there, and your competition is reading them. You should too. Learn enough to understand what works, and what is absolutely essential. The best earning websites are often the ones with page one listings on Google. There are no two ways around this. You won’t need to be the best SEO guru in the world right off the bat. But stay on top of this as well. The rules of this marketplace changes every time Google rewrites their algorithm, and you’ll have to adapt with it.

Also, those that arrive from a search engine are more likely to click ads than those that arrive from other sources. Since they are already searching for something, and the ads on your page are likely to be as relevant as your own page.

And for goodness sake, avoid that black hat temptation like the plague. A lot of your work will be for nothing if you get banned. It might be tempting to take that shortcut to the Google first page, but it will bite you in the rear eventually.

11. Patience
Yes I said that before, but it seems to be in such short supply among new bloggers I thought I’d mention it twice.

12. Write 20 Timeless Posts Before You Even Think About Launching
Writers block is something that happens to everyone, and can kill a new blog very quickly. If you have a set of posts that you can drop on the days that you have gotten completely stuck, you will be able to maintain your blog. Also remember that you will get sick, stuck in an emergency or have something else go wrong that will stop your writing. Having a backup is never a bad idea.

This is also a great way to ensure that you have enough to say about your topic to actually have a blog on it. If you can’t come up with 20 posts when it’s fresh, you’ll probably have trouble coming up with it later too. Making them timeless means that you can use one whenever you need it, any other blog post is to be treated like perishable goods.

When you do use one, try to write a replacement for it so that you never run out of posts.

13. Think of the next step (Yes I know this is a list of 12, but 11 doesn’t really count)

Always think one step further, what is the next level of your blog. Is it a book? Webcast? Vlog? The options are out there to keep innovating yourself. Keeping up with trends lets you stay on - if not ahead - of the curve and keep your blog fresh and inviting. Also thinking to the next step of what you can offer your readers is the best way to make sure you are leveraging the earning potential. Just go slow and produce quality, remember that value in your offer is everything to maintaining a good relationship.

Remember, as a business, the blog is like any other, you need to meet your customers’ expectations in order to get return business.

Blogging as a business is probably one of the lowest cost enterprises you can attempt, but with that comes the hoards of others who have the same idea. You have to be able to both stand up over the crowd as well as outlast most of them before your investment will give you a lasting and significant return.

The Blogpreneur-3 will focus on the monetizing itself. Ads, products and services you can use to earn an income. Don’t forget to subscribe to get the remainder of this series.